Thursday, July 21, 2005

The Terror in Terrorism

"Let's not get all clever and start saying these people were amateurs who should cause us no worries. After all HAMAS, world leaders in suicide bombing,make duds too." London blogger Eric atDSTOP4W"My dream was to be a martyr. I believe in death. Today I wanted to blow myself up in a hospital... I wanted to kill 20, 50 Jews.'' 21-year-old Palestinian "Suicide Woman" Wafa Samir al-Biss, after her failed attempt Telegraph News

It's starting to feel a lot like Jerusalem in London. And like Iraq. And like Afghanistan. Fortunately for Londoners and thousands of seasonal tourists, nobody was killed today. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Israel.

On American news networks, CNN, Fox and the three morning shows gave us All London All Morning. But they had little more to offer than repetitive--and largely unrelated--London traffic videos, and even more repetitive "speculation" by reporters from the White House, the Pentagon and various network foreign desks, plus endless streams of pontification by terrorism experts.

You have to wonder, why don't we see more comprehensive coverage when bombs burst in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv? Where's the live video from Iraq or Afghanistan? The violence and carnage in those hot spots is not underground, it's right out in the open for the world to see -- bodies and body parts of soldiers, terrorists, innocent civilians. Bombs go off in Israel, Iraq, throughout the Middle East with bone chilling regularity. Yet all we get are snippets on the evening news, and stories with a few pictures in our newspapers.

Many of us have been stating the obvious since 2001 -- that the 9/11 attacks gave Americans a taste of what it's like to live in Israel every single day. Or to be a soldier in Iraq. Tragically, the 7/7 2005 bombings in London gave Europe the same horrendous empirical understanding. Yet the war in Iraq goes on unchecked, fully supported by both countries' governments.

Tony Blair's involvement continues to puzzle me. Perhaps because I don't know enough about him, or what motives drove him to make a devil's bargain with Bush. We all know why our American President forced us into this political war, and why he's keeping us there -- even in the face of enormous casualty counts and overwhelming opposition.

But George W. Bush got a break today. In fact, he got back-to-back breaks from public scrutiny and anger. His Supreme Court nominee announcement took the heat off the Karl Rove investigation. Then the second London bombings took the heat off the nominee.

Here's the problem with that: the heat is never off for soldiers and civilians in Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Israel. And the Bush Radical Right Wing Posse will have to take that heat sooner or later themselves.

Because regardless of what the Bush Administration believes about Americans, people can actually think--and care--about more than one thing at a time. And we know terrorism isn't always about bombings and body counts. It's also about subverting freedoms, torpedoing the truth, trampling on liberties.

Right here in America, our own government is striking terror into many of our hearts by killing our hopes and rights with the same lack of concern and compassion. It's not just Hamas and Al Queda who threaten our future -- it's George W. Bush and all his fellow Right Wingnuts who support immoral political wars at home and abroad.